


love, all-star plumbers

by cinnabean



Category: We Are The Ants
Genre: M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Ouch, POV Marcus, POV Second Person, Unrequited Love, and not explicitly because marcus doesn't wanna think about that, basically this is every interaction between marcus and henry but from marcus' pov, he's a huge dickwad but he spent the book pining after henry and he did rlly love him, in my opinion, pining marcus, poor Marcus, space boy, there's definitely going to be henry x diego but not till later, this is the first goddamn work for the fandom i wonder how it's gonna work out, we are the ants - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-06 20:12:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8767510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnabean/pseuds/cinnabean
Summary: Marcus McCoy literally has everything he could ever want. He's rich and popular, and if he's screwing the boy of his dreams in secret while the rest of the world thinks they hate each other—well, so what? They're still screwing. Unfortunately for Marcus, just because things are working out fine for him doesn't mean they are for Henry Denton, said boy of dreams. Henry's life is on a rapid decline that Marcus unknowingly seems to be accelerating. There's a new boy in town named Diego who hides the dark secrets of his past behind a wide grin. Diego is everything to Henry that Marcus isn't—kind, for example, in both public and private. Faced with losing Henry, the brightest star in his sky, Marcus grows colder and colder.—OR: We Are The Ants, but from Marcus' point of view.





	1. boy with the tattered halo

**Author's Note:**

> marcus McCoy is a huge fucking asshole and I don't intend to redeem him because he's a piece of shit who did shitty things but I needed to explore how he felt during this blessed book

“Space Boy,” you whisper. You’re staring at the back of his head, seeing the glint of manmade light reflect off his dark hair like a halo. He looks like an angel, some ethereal being of brightness that belongs in the skies. You’ve never told him this and you never will but sometimes you think the nickname he loathes so much suits the boy who shines like a star.

He ignores you, like he is wont to do, so you say it again. Louder. A bit more menacing. It’s not that you want to threaten him. What you seek is his attention, any way you can get it. If you have to resort to threats, you will. It’s always been like that, and it always will.

An army of your peers, your friends, whisper the hated nickname in a poisonous chant. His head dips down; the muscles of his neck strain. After a moment, he glances over his shoulder at you. His eyebrows are furrowed, his eyes narrowed, his lips pressed into a frown. You have his attention, and you revel in it, if only for a moment.

He dismisses you evenly, thoughtlessly. The boys you keep at your side like mindless soldiers crow at his daringness, but they crow at him, never at you. The scorn wafts off of them in waves, bearing down on him like a swarm of wasps. With every snicker, he winces as if stung. You have his attention, and it hurts him. It’s always been like that, and it always will.

He has nothing else to say to you and your soldiers. The bell rings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> advice: don't bully ur crush


	2. bathroom beauty, be mine

You cradle him in an out-of-order stall in the boys’ bathroom after school. You press him against one of the walls, eager to invade the space you’ve given him all day. Desire weighs you down like gravity, pushing you into him and holding the two of you together. A sound comes from outside the stall and he pulls away from you a bit. You catch his jaw and pull him back to your mouth. You kiss him like a starving man who has found a buffet of the finest foods between his lips.

Your hands flit over every part of his body they can reach. They cross behind his back to hold him closer to you, cup the softness of his cheeks to kiss him deeper, and reach for his pants to move the show on the road. 

“Cold hands!” he chuckles into your ear, squirming out of your hold. You don’t want to let him go, but you do. It’s always been like that, and it always will. He takes a few steps away from you to peek over the stall door. You’re more than a little tempted to jump him again, regardless of whether or not you are alone, but you satisfy yourself with simply keeping an eye on his backside as you turn to the toilet and start to piss. Holding yourself in your hand isn’t as pleasing as holding him in your hand, or having him hold you in his hand, but that’s nothing new and entirely expected of a horny teenage boy.

“My parents are in Tokyo this weekend,” you tell him when he turns back around, satisfied that you are alone in the bathroom. His cheeks redden once he realizes you’re unzipped, which you find both a little ridiculous and a little endearing. He’s already seen everything there is to be seen. 

“Again?”

“Awesome, right?” you zip yourself back up after you’re finished and reach for him again. If you had to spend the rest of your life together with him, lips connected, you don’t think you would mind. He feels absent though, so you push harder, force yourself deeper. He can’t lose himself to the space in his head if it’s full of you instead, but no matter how hard you try, you can’t find your way in. he pulls away from you like he always does; unwillingly, you let him go, but your hands itch to hold him again as he stumbles out of the stall. You can’t even spare a moment to take pride in the fact that he is unsteady because of you. “Where are you going, Space Boy?”

He jerks to a stop, for a millisecond—not even that, the _fraction_ of a millisecond—and then continues moving but not without shooting you a fierce look. “We agreed you weren’t going to call me that anymore,” he says frostily. Or, as frostily as he can—despite every punch the world throws at him, he has yet to return one in his voice. As long as you’ve known him, he’s spoken without pure hostility, no matter how upset. For that matter, you wonder if, given true upset, the time will come when he does manage to sound wintery and cold. You hope it never does.  
“It’s cute,” you tell him as you follow him out of the stalls and up to the mirrors at the sinks. “You’re cute, Space Boy.” Silence falls after your statement, and you watch as he pointedly looks from his reflection to yours, and back again. You almost  
want to shrug, but decide against it. _Yes,_ you’d acknowledge, _you don’t look like me. But I’m handsome, and you—you’re cute. Damn cute._ But he’s more than that, too, to you. He’s cute, but he’s also beautiful and he wears the scars of the last few years’ events like they are jewels embedded into his skin. He’s cute, but he’s also kind and hurting and remarkably willing to spend time with you when you ask for it, even if he doesn’t always seem as pleased with it as you are. 

Every now and then the thought surfaces back into your mind: he doesn’t want this like you do. He never has.

But that is ridiculous, for though it was you who sought him out after—it was you who sought him out that first time, he’d never tried to stop you or tell you no or that he didn’t want to give what you were offering to take.

A few weeks ago, you wandered into your parent’s separate bathrooms, looking for something to pass the time. In the cabinet of your mother’s, you’d found several bottles of anxiety and depression medication and snuck a few into your own private bathroom. You’re not anxious, or depressed, but the pills do blessedly give you the same feeling of elation you find when between Henry’s legs. You can take the pills when you can’t take him, and sometimes, it’s enough.

You reach into your pocket and pull out one of the pills, swallow it dry while refusing to acknowledge Henry’s quiet confusion.

“What do you say?” 

“About what?”

“Staying at my house this weekend.” While you wait for his answer, you imagine how the weekend could go. Free of interruptions for two days, having Henry all to yourself for two days. Unbidden, a desire bubbles up—one that has never taken place yet, but one you still hope for. One where, after you are both through and sated, you needn’t even ask and he stays in your arms, your bed, or wherever you finish. Usually, if on the bed, he take to the floor after, as he will if on one of the couches. If on the floor, he’ll just move to the side, out of reach. Not once has he found reason to remain in your hold, though you have always had plenty at the tip of your tongue to share with him should he ask. Given the opportunity this weekend, you think you might dare to share them anyway, even if he doesn’t ask.

“I don’t know,” Henry says, finally. “My mom expects me to look after my grandma and—”

“Your loss, Space Boy,” you say with a grin that definitely feels too tight and fake. You want the pill to take effect. You want to invade Space Boy’s space again. You want to hold him close and whisper things into the biggish ears that he tries to hide behind his wavy hair, things like _I know I’m not Jesse but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you._ instead, you settle—though, really, it’s hardly settling—for smacking his ass to remind him what exactly he’s missing out on. Though, really, he’s not missing out on much in _that_ way of things—you might be a little biased but you don’t think there is an ass out there more beautiful than Henry Denton’s. you might’ve even said so to him, once, lost in post-coital bliss and without the verbal filter you’d otherwise have.

Henry pushes his hair out of his eyes so that he can fix them on you. You’re quite a bit pleased to see that the ass-pat coaxed another flush onto his cheeks, and that there’s even a bit of arousal shining in his dark eyes. “You could swing by my house. Nana will be there, but we’ll tell her you’re the pool boy.”

While you haven’t exactly fucked only in private places when explicitly alone—you do, after all, have a reason for throwing yourself at Henry in public as often as you do—you’ve never fucked at his house knowing other people are there. it’s one of the reasons you invite him over to your place so often, besides the clear benefit of a bigger house; with your parents absent so often and the servants obedient to every dismissal you send their way, you never have to worry about being interrupted. Taking Henry knowing that his eccentric grandmother is loose around the property is not something that excites you. “You don’t have a pool,” is the only excuse you can come up with that isn’t unnecessarily rude. He sighs, and that’s when you realize too late that he was trying to find a way to hang out with you. You wish you’d realized it sooner, even though your answer might’ve stayed the same. Yes, you want to spend time with him—you’d give all your time to him if you didn’t have to worry about what your parents and friends would think of it—but the thought of hooking up with him at his house is overpowering the desire to do so. You’d take his absence over screwing him in a place that might ruin the experience for both of you.

Henry’s staring at himself in the mirror when you look over. He’s frowning at his reflection and you wish you had the kind of relationship where you could kiss every accused imperfection on his face and convince him that they are all perfect to you. You wish you had the courage to even try— _all good things come to those who try_ and shit like that—if you dared to encourage him maybe it would be enough to take things in the direction you have gone in your most secret dreams. His face pinches much like it had earlier, in science class, and you wonder what it is he thinks of that brings him to make such an expression.

“If you knew the world was going to end but you could prevent it,” he says, apropos of nothing, “would you?”

His eyes dart to yours in the mirror and you snap your own back to yourself before he notices that you were looking at him, again, always. If he knew the way you look at him, would he be flattered or disgusted? If he knew that your gaze sometimes betrayed the love you weren’t supposed to feel for him, would he call off every meager thing you’ve managed to build between yourself and him? You were just supposed to be “not Jesse” to him, and that’s what it was at first but now you find you want to be something more to him—not simply _not Jesse_ , you want to be _Marcus_ who he can give his body and his love to because he wants to, not because the person he’d rather give it to put on a rope necklace and lost the game, on purpose.

If the world was ending, really, truly ending, you’d grab a fistful of his shirt, pull him close, and let everybody around you deal with the fact that you are in love with him. You’d refuse to let him out of your sight ever again. You’d make him yours, through and through, and damn the consequences. If the world was really, truly ending, and you could save it—you’re not sure. 

“What?” you mumble, which is easier than trying to explain to Henry how you would be fine either way because if the world ended you would stay by his side for the rest of it but if you saved it, you’d get to spend the rest of your life with him and be a hero, _his_ hero.

He’s scowling at you now, you can tell even though you’re inspecting yourself instead of him, because your answer has disappointed him just like everything else you do. 

“Would you—” he starts to say, but the bathroom door swings open and in comes big beefy Jason Rickers, who’s in your math and is pretty stupid but also smart enough to recognize a social outcast when he sees one and popular enough to make a big deal if he should say anything about seeing Marcus McCoy and Henry Denton fraternizing alone in the boys’ bathroom.

Henry’s eyes go blank a second before you make the conscious decision to shoulder him into the hand dryer as you walk out. You pretend not to hear the yelp of pain he makes, even though it makes your chest feel like ice and dissolve the little high that the pill’s managed to give you. No matter how much it hurts you to hurt him, you have to keep up appearances. It’s always been like that, and it always will (though you hope it won’t, hope the future will allow you to be kind to Henry without risk of being judged).

“Catch you around, Space Boy,” you say with a sharp grin as you waltz out the door. If your heart feels a little bit like breaking as you leave him—well. It’s always been like that. And it always will.


	3. nobody called for a nude model (aka: fuck off diego)

_bleachers. lunch. i’ll bring the footlong._

You know when Henry gets the message because he jumps in his seat, startled. The teacher too becomes distracted, her eyes catching on him much like yours do—only different. You wait for the reply rather impatiently, half-fearing that he’ll reject you again and half imagining how lunch will go. Your Space Boy tastes like how you imagine the universe would; you can’t wait to eat him up.

When the teacher finally turns away from him, Henry hunches over and checks his phone. Just barely, and only because you watch him so closely—and you’re a bit surprised too, that you can watch this boy so desperately and none of your friends or peers have noticed—you can see the soft glow of the light of his phone washing over his face and hair. So preoccupied with your gazing, you don’t immediately register when your phone buzzes to show his response.

 _I’ll be there,_ it reads. Quick and to the point, no playing around. Henry’s always been like that, and he always will.

A few minutes pass; the teacher babbles on, unknowing or uncaring of her students’ lack of interest; Henry quietly drums his fingers against his desk; you shift your gaze from the halo shining in his hair to his big ears, peeking out slightly from the curl of his hair, to the tap tap tap of his gentle fingers.

All of a sudden, the classroom door swings open. A tall, handsome but dangerous looking guy settles himself in the doorway with a nasty grin and thumbs hooked through the belt loops of his shorts. He surveys the class and the class surveys him in return.

The strange boy licks his lips. There’s a sharp, quiet inhale from somebody around you. “Someone called for a nude model?”

The teacher sputters, gobsmacked. A smirk twitches onto your face, unbidden—whoever this guy is, you think you might like him. Henry turns his head slightly to glance at you out of the corner of his eye, in

what is clearly an attempt to be subtle, but you catch the jealousy that flashes in his eye and feel ridiculously pleased.

The boy—Diego—is in the wrong room, which disappoints you for a moment. He seems like he’d really liven up the class. But then, the teacher calls on Henry to guide him back to the proper room, and the boy’s eyes for the first time fall on Henry, who’s now sitting up straight and flushing at the new attention. Diego looks him up and down and the grin from before turns downright _predatory_. Henry stumbles when standing up and by the time he makes it to Diego, the red blush on his cheeks from embarrassment has turned pink, the kind of pink only you—and _Jesse_ —have put there before.

The smirk on your face slants. It sours into a frown.

A few minutes after the class gets out, Henry finally comes crashing back down the hall. He’s breathless and the tips of his ears glow pink, and the pinch of his lips is betrayed by the sparkle in his eyes.

You watch him practically bounce into the classroom and collect his things. Any other day, any other moment, the sight would have you softening---on the inside, at least.

Now, all you can do is glare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i imagine that, for a brief second, marcus might have found himself attracted to diego. just for a second, and then he realizes that henry wAs attracted and is not ok with that.  
> like, you're cute. but wait, the guy i like seems to think you're cute too-which i don't like, so you're not cute anymore and i hate you alsogivehimbacktomeplease


	4. this footlong's made of love

Twenty minutes later you have him under the bleachers, beneath your hands, back where he belongs. Your hands can’t seem to stop; they slide up and down his arms, across the expanse of his shoulders, catch at his neck and the small of his back to pull him closer, closer, close as you can. You want him to forget about the new kid—you’d have forgotten him too by now, but you remember the way he purred his name, the way he looked at Henry like he was something to eat(which he is, but only for you). You're all over his body so you know he's there, with you, but his mind is very clearly somewhere else 

(and if it's on the new kid, well, fuck, you oughtta do something about that to get his attention back on you where it belongs, maybe using your fingers or your teeth or—) 

and after a few moments of desperation on your part, he pushes you away. You can't help but chase after him, because he's always running away from you and you're always chasing after him(and it has always been like that and it always will be like that), but he holds you firmly away from him. "Sorry," he starts to explain and looks sheepish. "I skipped breakfast." 

You know that if this were a normal relationship—hell, a relationship at all instead of the fumbled secret meetings and booty calls—you as Henry's boyfriend(and no, the word _boyfriend_ does not in any way make you salivate when used in reference to him) would be expected to be concerned, to hem and haw and fuss like a mother hen while rushing to feed him. You've heard your soldiers complain about their girlfriends doing this in the past, and you've even had one or two of your own who've used couple etiquette to coerce you into getting them food. Though it's irritated you before, you know Henry isn't telling you this to get you to feed him, because that's not what he expects of you. What he expects is for brash, self-satisfying Marcus to make some sort of nasty joke and ruin the moment. 

_I could be more_ you sometimes think of whispering to him. _I could treat you better than anybody has ever treated you before. I could be your Prince or your Knight, as long as I'm yours. You deserve so, so much—and I want to give you as much as I can, so long as you just let me._

But he won't. So you do as you're expected, grabbing your crotch with a sultry grin, hiding what you're really feeling behind your crude words and purr: "I've got something you could—" 

"I changed my mind," Henry says quickly, and you would spare the time to be disappoint or even resigned that he continues to bait you the way he does and then dares to get upset when you do what he gives you no choice other than to do, but he continues with "about this weekend," and now. You're a bit grateful about the distance between you because otherwise he would no doubt be able to feel that condemning mega thump of your heart at that admission. You didn't expect him to give in, you _didn't._

_You didn't._

"Really?" Can he hear the hope, you wonder? Can he somehow sense the blend of emotions slip sliding through you? The soft relief, the desire you can't help, the anticipation of your earlier weekend fantasy, the want the want the _want_. 

And then, like an icy cold waterfall, or the crash that comes after one of your mom's pills, or like watching some bad boy with dark hair and dark eyes flash a perfect predator smile toward Henry, _your_ Henry, _yours_ , comes the disappointment. 

Henry keeps talking, and you've always had a fascination with his mouth and what he says, but now all you can do is stare at that mouth and try to let it save you from your bad mood before you screw things up. You can't make out the words he says beyond _mom_ and _Charlie_ and _Nana_. Charlie, looking after Nana. The reason he turned you down in the first place. 

Your hands ache to squeeze, to hit, to hurt. But there is no one here to hurt except for him, and you've hurt him enough and he's been hurt enough so you grab for your water bottle instead and force yourself to drink from it and calm down, as much as you can. 

"Too late, Space Boy." 

"Why?" Is it your imagination, or does he sound shaken? It must be. He's never before felt regret or anything like that when the two of you couldn't work out a date. Not even earlier, in the bathroom when he'd turned you down had he sounded apologetic. 

"After you blew me off, I decided to throw a little party." Or, you decided to round up your soldiers, have your army all in one place to blow off a little rage with the people who see you as a king and treat you like so. You aren't Henry's king, much as you'd like to be. To him, you're the joker, the jester; good for a laugh or a smile or a _good time_ when called upon, but to be forgotten, disregarded, and ignored the rest of the time. 

"Oh," he says. Small. Soft. Emotion crawls through you again, and this time you can't keep your hands to yourself but you don't want to hurt him with them this time, because your words apparently already have. You settle for reaching out to his chest, seeking out a nipple and pinching it. Usually, when he allows you to do this(if, because he doesn't usually let you do it, because it's casual sex for him and nipple play has no place in casual sex), you're able to twist out of him no small amount of mewls and whimpers, which you love. Now, though, he bats your hand away with a frown and hisses _dick_ at you like he expects it to hurt you. 

You're not exactly surprised. Or hurt. Dick might as well be your name, for all the students who aren't your soldiers seem to like nothing more than to call you that. _Hello, nice to meet you. I'm Dick McCoy, and I'm in love with a boy who's in love with a ghost._

What would you have to do to get his attention and his affection, for real? Would you have to die, too? Does Henry only like the boys who love him and leave him in the cruelest of ways? Because you love him—you love him so, _so_ much, so terribly much—but you don't think you will ever be able to leave him. If the world was ending and you could save it, you'd grab Henry and run away from the rest of the world. You'd keep him safe and by your side and you would never leave him, not _ever_. 

But now he's thinking of leaving you, because you're a _dick_ and you're brash and self-satisfying, and you make crude jokes and ruin moments and _just not good enough for him, are you?_

"It's not even a party, really," you say. He's upset, and he wants to leave, and you won't be seeing him over the weekend so you can't lose this opportunity to get a taste of Henry Denton. "More like an intimate gathering of friends." Of soldiers and kings. An army collected and corralled in a cold castle, made warm only by the presence of the one that didn’t want to be there when he could, and wants to now that he can't. 

For a moment, the two of you stand together without speaking. He's quiet, eyes shifting from your face to his shoes, back again and back. The moment's in his hands now, the decision to stay with you for what you called him outside for, or slip away like the ghost he chases. All you can do is stand in front of him and hope he can see the sincerity in your eyes. 

"Next time," he says after a little while. One side of his mouth twitches, but you don't know if it's quirking up for a smile or down for a frown. If he's disappointed, still, or relieved. 

"Definitely." Soon, you hope. You'll check your parent's travel calendar when they return and look for open weekends, open weeks, times when the house is all yours so that you can invite him over with "let's make it _ours_." 

You don't know how far away your next time together will be. But you have now, right now behind the bleachers, where nobody is watching but somebody could be. Where a quick glance at your phone says you have less than ten minutes left to get your fix. 

"Come on, Space Boy. Bell's gonna ring soon, and I didn't invite you out here to talk." 

_Maybe someday, though, you'll be able to._

**Author's Note:**

> advice: don't bully ur crush


End file.
